Rwanda Politics

About 20,000 people marched in Rwanda's capital Sunday to protest increasing violence in the tiny Central African nation. Officials say an average of three people are killed daily in Kigali in political clashes.

Vice President Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front nominated him for the presidency Saturday, clearing his way to become Rwanda's first Tutsi leader since independence in 1962. After a one-day closed meeting, the Tutsi-dominated RPF announced that it will put Kagame and the party's secretary-general, Charles Muligande, before parliament on April 14-20 for a final vote on a successor to Pasteur Bizimungu, who resigned March 23.

"Never again," everyone vowed after learning of the millions who died in Nazi death camps during World War II, these bold pledges of vigilance resonating across decades. "We are here to consecrate this memorial and to contemplate its meaning for us," President Clinton said in 1993 when dedicating the Holocaust Museum in Washington. "The evil represented in this museum is incontestable, but as we are its witness, so must we remain its adversary in the world in which we live." Powerful words.

"Never again," everyone vowed after learning of the millions who died in Nazi death camps during World War II, these bold pledges of vigilance resonating across decades. "We are here to consecrate this memorial and to contemplate its meaning for us," President Clinton said in 1993 when dedicating the Holocaust Museum in Washington. "The evil represented in this museum is incontestable, but as we are its witness, so must we remain its adversary in the world in which we live." Powerful words.

Catholic and Protestant leaders in Rwanda betrayed their beliefs by aligning themselves far too closely with the former Hutu-dominated regime and its tribal politics, a high-ranking official of the World Council of Churches said in Geneva.

Vice President Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front nominated him for the presidency Saturday, clearing his way to become Rwanda's first Tutsi leader since independence in 1962. After a one-day closed meeting, the Tutsi-dominated RPF announced that it will put Kagame and the party's secretary-general, Charles Muligande, before parliament on April 14-20 for a final vote on a successor to Pasteur Bizimungu, who resigned March 23.

The explosion heard in the skies over Kigali at 9:40 on the night of April 6 caused no great alarm. The capital had been tense for weeks, and the sounds of grenades and rifle fire hardly made anyone flinch anymore. "Nothing to worry about. Probably just thunder," Phillippe Lambiliotte, a Belgian businessman, reassured his wife. The night was thick with humidity and heat and more silent than usual. Lambiliotte remembers hearing a dog bark.

President Clinton ordered "an immediate and massive increase" in U.S. aid to Rwandan refugees Friday, including a round-the-clock military airlift of food, water and medicine to camps where the death toll has reached dire levels. "The flow of refugees across Rwanda's borders has now created what could be the world's worst humanitarian crisis in a generation," Clinton said at a White House news conference.

The experts doubted it would work. They suspected the French would take sides. And they spoke darkly of "another Somalia," from where U.S. troops had been forced by American public opinion to beat an ignominious retreat. But three weeks ago, as the United States and every other nation did little more than wring their hands about the ethnic bloodletting in Rwanda, France airlifted 2,500 of its young sons and daughters in uniform into the heart of the Central African conflict.

Catholic and Protestant leaders in Rwanda betrayed their beliefs by aligning themselves far too closely with the former Hutu-dominated regime and its tribal politics, a high-ranking official of the World Council of Churches said in Geneva.

The explosion heard in the skies over Kigali at 9:40 on the night of April 6 caused no great alarm. The capital had been tense for weeks, and the sounds of grenades and rifle fire hardly made anyone flinch anymore. "Nothing to worry about. Probably just thunder," Phillippe Lambiliotte, a Belgian businessman, reassured his wife. The night was thick with humidity and heat and more silent than usual. Lambiliotte remembers hearing a dog bark.

About 20,000 people marched in Rwanda's capital Sunday to protest increasing violence in the tiny Central African nation. Officials say an average of three people are killed daily in Kigali in political clashes.